SOHO THEATRE WALTHAMSTOW – UNTIL 5th JULY 2025
REVIEWED BY JACKIE THORNTON
4****
“It’s great to be back to celebrate pride in…in Walthamstow.” American drag cabaret duo Kiki and Herb have been absent from stages for eighteen years and it’s in the Soho Theatre’s new neighbourhood venue that they relaunch their unique brand of dark stories, offbeat musical covers and scathing wit.
Justin Vivian Bond plays Kiki DuRane, an aging, alcoholic female lounge singer and Kenny Mellman is her gay piano accompanist known only as Herb. Kiki instantly coaxes rapturous laughter from the adoring crowd by suggesting that east London is a bit of a comedown and it’s this bleak, acerbic tone that punctuates the whole performance.
There’s a wonderful absurd quality too as Kiki and Herb’s elaborate fictional biographies take them right back to a cruel children’s home in the 1940s. Kiki is in her element describing encounters with Sylvia Plath while constantly topping up the duo’s pints of whisky. Eclectic numbers like The Windmills Of Your Mind and Suede’s Pantomime Horse are belted out by Kiki as she dominates the stage, balancing the right amount of apathy and comical incompetence with musical prowess. Herb remains behind the piano, chipping in from time to time but Kiki is the one running the show. This is her confessional.
Some of the comedy cuts quite close to the bone and is not for everyone but Kiki is an
antagonistic force and that’s the appeal.
If you like your entertainment to be confronting and deranged with nostalgic musical medleys then get along to Walthamstow to witness the New York cabaret legends in the flesh. It was standing ovations all round from an appreciative audience.